Office of the Historian

740.00119 EW/10–2345

The Ambassador in France (Caffery) to the Secretary of State

Paris, October 23, 1945—8 p.m.
[Received 8:40 p.m.]

6200. Foreign Office informed Embassy today that it will send note tomorrow73 formally replying to Embassy’s note transmitting contents of Dept’s 4858, Oct 18, 7 p.m., repeated to London as 9244. According to Alphand note will contain following points:

(1)
French Govt last week instructed its representative Allied Control Council to agree to principle that Allied Control Council assisted by Allied Reparations Commission would make initial allocation of industrial equipment to be removed from the Western Zones as between Russia and Poland on the one hand and other claimants on the other. (It is believed that difficulty on this point arose because of delay in instruction reaching French representative.)
(2)
France has no intention of agreeing to actual shipments from the Western Zones to Poland and Russia until Soviet Union has agreed to restitution (France however is willing to have Allied Control [Page 1357] Council proceed with allocation as long as no actual shipments take place).

Alphand commented that French position was an equitable one as regards restitution and that France could not be treated in same manner as Rumania or Finland.

He also said that he was going to London tomorrow and hoped to discuss the Ruhr problem with Assistant Secretary Dunn.74

Repeated to London as 770.

Caffery
  1. The note was actually transmitted on November 3; text was sent to the Department in telegram 6416, November 5, 7 p.m., from Paris, not printed.↩
  2. See telegram 6326, October 31, 6 p.m., from Paris, p. 889.↩